


Scars

by hypnodisc



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Scars, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 15:16:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4226769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypnodisc/pseuds/hypnodisc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry, in the body of a soldier, is sent back to 1939. To say that others are disturbed by his appearance is an understatement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars

**Author's Note:**

> My first little thing, which I thought I might write more of, but have now changed my mind. In the same way that I could never get my tenses straight in primary school, I have totally failed to achieve consistency of tone here.

Politely averting his eyes from his dormmates, Harry undressed and went to his trunk to find something to sleep in. The sudden awkward silence was nothing unusual, but he stood up when he heard the gasps. Their eyes were all fixed on him, judging him. There was fear,disgust – It seemed to Harry to be a gross overreaction.

Certainly, a few accidents had rather disfigured him, but overall, he thought the scales to be rather noble, the glittering flatness of burn scars to be elegant, and the gnarled flesh on his left side to add a sort of masculine ruggedness, which prevented his appearance from becoming too handsome. The boys, though, were staring. Malfoy, who had finally finished perfecting his hair in the bathroom, and was now stood frozen in the doorway was eyeing his unique features with what closely resembled horror. 

Defiantly, Harry straightened his back a little, stuck out his chest, and didn’t meet anyone’s eye as he pulled on his long-sleeved pyjamas, and slid behind the closed curtains of his four-poster. Shame and embarrassment struck him suddenly as he sat atop the duvet, surrounded by darkness. It was a sudden agony that sunk into him, burning on his cheeks, and turning his stomach. In his mind, he saw the eyes of his dormmates outside the curtains meeting in significant looks, winces of pity and disgust. Would they tell – 

It had never occurred to Harry to feel self-conscious. His body had always been a weapon, a tool. Not to be used as Tom Riddle’s was – a seducing, tricksy machine which intimidated as it enthralled. Instead, Harry’s body was made to suffer, sacrifice, survive. The scars had never bothered him, truly. He had already carried the heavy reminder of his parents’ death, and his prophesised fate in the middle of his forehead for all of his life, so he bore each new wound like another mark on the calendar. Another failed plot, another loss. This is where I held on tightly to the locket, even as it spewed black fire in its efforts to escape. Here is where I took the curse meant for a student, who didn’t even get to turn and look at me before he was hit by another avada kedavra. This one and this one, I don’t remember. Burns, gashes, patched repairs. Scars are like callouses, symbol of experience, not always unwelcome.

Harry was immune to vanity, now, and was no longer queasy about trading beauty for utility, growing a hard shell which protected him from injury. He had undergone certain modifications through the years; some hard, coal-black dragon scales fused to the skin of his chest, a little metal, inscribed with runes, sewn under his skin. The whole of his back was tattooed with encrypted co-ordinates, though many were now obscured by overlapping curse scars, and one potions burn (this one an accident) under his left arm which had eaten through much of the flesh surrounding his ribs and left mottled skin stretched over bone, lifting rhythmically as his lungs filled and emptied.

Here, now, his body was out of place. A twisted relic of war inside of a school which had never known death. Harry felt as if he was a teenager again, awkward, nervous, painfully aware of his flaws. He longed for the obscuring always half-darkness of Grimmauld place, where the mirrors always seemed to be covered. Where the only ones left were soldiers, and no-one was there to mother him, pity him, to see him. There, his appearance would not be a concern. There, he was something more than human, unbound by petty human expectations, he was the last hope of the world, a sacrifice, the boy-who-lived. A great soul in the body of a boy. And what did it matter if the vessel was tarnished, surely it was all the more incentive for sacrifice?

Harry scowled. He resented this sudden feeling of inadequacy – hadn’t his body done enough to prove its worthiness? It seemed laughable, ridiculous to doubt himself now. He reminded himself that the scars made him powerful, demonstrated his tenacity.

Riddle himself had sacrificed his beauty for intimidation

___

The next day, no-one spoke of it, although it seemed that Riddle had heard of what had happened. No doubt, from one of his loyal sycophants.

The evening before had been filled with overtly invasive hands on his elbow, knowing jabs with elbows, flirting accidental brushes of fingers. Under the harsh revealing light of Scottish dawn, they wouldn’t touch him, he noticed.

His scars itched.


End file.
